Experience with A-Fib?

[AmyR440]

I am a 38 yr old female, hospitalized for the first time last week with A-fib. My doctor seems to think the strep I had at the time triggered the A-fib (although I also suffer from HBP). He put me on 12.5 mgs of metoprolol once a day and 25 mgs Losartan daily....along with an aspirin a day. They ran all sorts of blood tests - no mineral deficiencies. Stress echo came back normal. My question is - I am soooooo anxious about having another episode. I am not sleeping, and I've put myself on a very strict cardiac diet (even though my doc says my cholesterol is phenomenal - so again, no blockages to speak of). Am I over the top? I have four kids at home and I'm just soooo worried.

[AmyR440]

Thanks, I have a follow up with my cardiologist on Tuesday. I definately am not in any kind of endurance training, lol, I could stand to lose a few pounds, and if I do, I may be able to say goodbye to my blood pressure problems, and then just be on rate control meds for the Afib (which I am hoping is due to strep and never comes back!!!). I have already started looking into ablations in case I need to have them, because I will certainly not live with it forever. I can't stand it to be off beat at all.

[AmyR440]

Oh, and I don't drink - however, I used to consume copious amounts of caffeine a day. I have now sworn off of anything with caffeine, including any chocolate.

[researcher09]

AF is not acutely dangerous but you do want to maintain the aspirin per the doctors instruction to reduce the risk of a stroke for now and ask the doctor about switching to anti-coagulation meds.  Because yours is paroxysmal AF, it is hard to correlate it to anything else including strep.  For some people, there are triggers such as caffeine, alcohol, hormonal changes, etc ...  Also, endurance training could trigger remodeling of heart muscles and some will develop AF from excessive training.  Anti-arrhythmic medications may help but majority cannot handle the side effects or the meds just lose effectiveness over time.  The important thing is not to let AF progress into the persistent form when you have to be cardioverted back into rhythm.  Give meds a short leash and find an electrophysiologist that is skilled at ablations and do a high volume of AF ablations in case you need to go that route.